Daily Darwin

We're not judging. We're just saying that's quite a reaction for a squirrel.....

Darwin 2 9 23 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Darwin 2: Tuesday, September 23, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Darwin 2: Tuesday, September 23, 2025

 We're not judging. We're just saying that's quite a reaction for a squirrel.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Economy

CHEYENNE — Wyoming knows it has a huge housing problem. 

Builders, city and county administrators, state officials, business and community leaders — it doesn’t matter which of them you ask, most will agree the state is short tens of thousands of homes.

Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure.

On paper, Southeast Wyoming Builders Association’s Joe Killpack acknowledges that sounds like it should be a developer’s dream. 

But the reality is a lot more complicated, Killpack told Cowboy State Daily. It’s a tangled knot of economics and investment risk, criss-crossed with infrastructure costs and policy decisions that make houses more costly and time-consuming to build.

“This is a macro problem, not a micro problem,” Killpack added. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to pinpoint one issue. There are several issues. We’re talking about labor costs. We’re talking about commodity costs. We’re talking about development costs.”

Those make homes too expensive for Wyoming’s middle class to afford.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Middle Class Squeeze"}]

If Wyoming’s housing crisis has a face, it’s the middle-class worker earning median wages. 

Once, that would have signaled a solid, respectable income. Today, it increasingly falls short as wages continue to lose ground against persistent inflation. 

 was $75,500 in 2024, 7.4% below the U.S. median. 

Year over year, incomes rose just 1.3% while inflation climbed 2.9% — a clear decline in real purchasing power for the typical Wyoming family. 

Over the long term, the trend remains problematic. 

Wages have stayed relatively flat since at least 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. For much of that time, inflation was modest, hovering between 1% and 2%. But that changed in 2021, when it surged 4.2%, before peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 — the highest level since 1981.

The result has been a widening gap between what workers earn and what it costs to live. 

Regardless of the causes, the stark reality is wages have not kept pace with living expenses for most Wyomingites. 

That marks a fundamental shift for the state’s middle class. 

Median incomes that once reliably supported homeownership — a cornerstone of financial stability for many families — no longer stretch as far. Increasingly, the workers who power local economies are priced out of the communities they serve. 

The strain shows up in everyday decisions. Longer commutes. Delayed home purchases. And, in some cases, leaving the state altogether.

Wyoming loses roughly 70% of its residents by the time they reach age 30, state officials have said. Housing costs are frequently cited as a key factor in that outmigration, which has led to 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Math Problem"}]

The problem, as Killpack sees it, isn’t that developers can’t see the demand. It’s that the basic math of putting up homes, especially ones that regular families can afford, no longer works. 

On the cost side, labor, commodities, tariffs and fuel have all climbed, pushing construction budgets higher even before projects hit city hall for approval.

After that, fees and regulations are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of homes, along with code changes like thicker exterior walls or new sprinkler requirements.

“Every time a new code is adopted the costs go up,” he said. “We’re doing these new codes to protect the health and the safety of our people who are living in these homes, which, hey, I can’t disagree with. But that doesn’t mean that costs go down. They only go up.”

Codes requiring particular types of insulation, for example, have meant using two-by-six-inch lumber in exterior walls, which adds to the cost versus a two-by-four.

“In Laramie, we have to do a draft stop in the basement,” he said. “So most are doing sprinkler systems and everybody thinks that’s wonderful, right? Because it truly is. If there’s a fire, it’s great. It’ll stop a fire. But the costs still go up, every single time.”

Meanwhile, waiting times for permit approvals stretch to as long as 18 months or more. In some cases, during which time interest rates, prices, and demand are all shifting.

“I’m involved in a project right now where we were going to build some apartments,” he said. “And this project originally started three years ago. They have had to stop, because the market changed.”

What The Median Buys V. What Developers Can Build

The gap comes into sharp focus when median income is translated into buying power. 

A median salary of $75,500 supports up to $2,097 for a monthly mortgage, assuming a borrower with minimal debt and strong credit. On a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 6.47%, that maximum mortgage payment tracks back to a maximum loan amount of $332,842. 

Homes in the low $300,000 range no longer pencil out for developers, Killpack said.

“A single-family home under $400,000 is almost impossible,” he said. 

Builder margins, he added, are much lower than people think.

“Most people think it’s like 15, 20%,” he said. “It’s actually very minimal. I mean, you’re anywhere between 3-6% and that’s it.”

Which means developers themselves don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to their budgets. 

Given that kind of margin, when you look at a city like Cheyenne where 5,000 homes are needed, the kind of investment it takes doesn’t feel like it’s worth the risk, Killpack said.

“(Let’s) talk about building 1,250 homes in a year in Cheyenne just to meet the minimum of what we’re projecting,” he said. “And let’s just say $400,000 homes … you’d need a $500 million investment annually.”

For that kind of money, Killpack said developers look at what’s known as the absorption rate, which measures how fast homes sell in a given market. They’re asking themselves where they can get the fastest return on investment. 

Wyoming’s absorption rate needs to be higher to attract investment, Killpack said. 

Now, developers can find many markets with both less risk and faster absorption rates, like those in Texas, Utah, and the Denver metro area, all of which have larger populations to spread risk around. 

Wyoming’s lack of population, Killpack added, has many investors turning up their noses at Wyoming projects, deeming them too risky. 

That doesn’t mean no one wants to invest in Wyoming, Killpack added. 

“But it takes more than just people in Wyoming to make Wyoming grow,” he said. “Capital that’s being infused into our economy doesn’t only come from our local regional banks. It comes from other people, too, and they have to be willing to invest in Wyoming.”

On paper, the city of Douglas seems like the classic Wyoming success story. 

Oil and gas jobs form the bedrock of its economy, but more than 300 businesses in health care, education and retail round things out. Hotels are packed with energy workers — the kind of activity that ought to be pumping money into every cash register in town. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But there’s a catch."}]

“Our population is 6,512 based on our community snapshot, and 50% of our workers live in the city,” Interim City Administrator Michele Carter told Cowboy State Daily. “About 42% live in Casper. So, we have about half our workforce living in Douglas, just under half.”

The rest are headed to Casper or other areas around Douglas, like Glenrock. 

The reason, Carter said, is directly related to a lack of affordable housing.

“A lot of our housing that has been built over the last few years is in that $400,000 to $500,000 range,” she said. “Which doesn’t fit your local businesses, your teachers, your nurses who are coming in to fill those spots in our school district and our hospital here.”

Many of the oil and gas workers who do live in Douglas, meanwhile, are staying in campers and at the fairgrounds because of a lack of rental properties. 

Fixing that has proven difficult, Carter said. 

Development costs, which include building out new sewer and water services, exceed what most people can afford to pay.

It’s taken a $5.7 million grant for water and sewer lines to help get things moving on a 30-acre site on the edge of town that will include a 94-apartment complex, plus several acres of single-family housing and new commercial space. 

“The grant is really to put the infrastructure in,” Carter said. “Developers couldn’t make the numbers work if they have to eat all of those water, sewer and utility costs on top of everything else.”

Even with a grant, no one is pretending this is a silver bullet that will fix everything. 

The apartments and homes the development unlocks will also take years to build, and the demand from mid-level workers is already far ahead of what’s on the drawing board.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Douglas isn’t Alone"}]

Infrastructure is a significant barrier for communities across the Cowboy State, Hoversland told Cowboy State Daily, but it’s particularly acute for communities with fewer than 5,000 people. 

Water lines, sewer, roads and power are required before even a single house can be built in a new area. For small towns with a thin tax base, fronting the money for that is typically next to impossible.

“Some of the bigger cities, Casper and Cheyenne especially, have more items they can do and have infrastructure built out,” he said. “But our cities under 5,000 population in Wyoming, that doesn’t give the numbers to draw developers in. 

“So, infrastructure funding is another one of those things that I think is a big holdup. It really restricts a lot of developers coming in, because they have to pay for the infrastructure to say 25-to-50-home development, and that’s a lot of upfront cost and a lot of risk on the developer.”

Wyoming isn’t alone in facing such problems. 

Nationally, the Harvard University State of the Nation's Housing 

 released Thursday shows that construction is down across the nation amid rising costs and an ever-widening gap between what median households can afford and what median homes cost. 

There’s a growing wave of state and local experiments on the ground — ranging from tax abatements, zoning changes, and new financing tools — all aimed at getting more units on the ground across the nation.

Wyoming is part of the melting pot of state ideas. 

Hoversland points to a statewide housing strategic action plan that has 27 items that may help, including fast-track permitting, infrastructure funding tools, and support for manufactured and prefabricated homes, as well as tweaks to how federal housing dollars are used to stretch them further.

Jason Mincer, executive director of Wyoming Neighbors for Housing, is pushing public-private partnerships, community land trusts, and even a state-level investment fund to help shoulder upfront risk for workforce housing, along with streamlined approvals to cut months off project timelines. 

Communities like Cheyenne, meanwhile, are rewriting their own rule books, streamlining zoning codes and getting rid of standards that may have been nice to have once upon a time, but don’t really impact safety and add significantly to costs. 

Cheyenne has even created a “cottage lot” development option that lets builders cluster very small homes closer together with shared open space, which has already attracted some developers.

All of those ideas help at the margins. But Wyoming has to find ways to make it routine, rather than remarkable, to build homes in the price ranges that teachers, nurses, and sheriff’s deputies can afford.

Otherwise, nothing changes with the overriding trend where a large number of Wyoming households are maxed out in the low $300,000 range, and builders can’t drop below $400,000. 

Until that gap can be routinely bridged, builders will remain cautious, and the state will continue to lose many of its young people to areas where the wages are a better match to prevailing home prices.

Cheyenne Housing Main IMG 6742 6 21 26

<title>Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn’t work. Middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Dietz was once a busy and bustling community made up of a collection of mining camps scattered along the Tongue River Valley.  

Barefoot children were full of mischief, baseball games were played between rival camps, and then the explosions would come. 

Families would rush to the mines to discover if the men who were working that shift had survived.  

Stanley A. Kuzara of Sheridan was born on Oct. 15, 1906, into this dangerous and poor — but lively — life. Along with many others, found that growing up in a dangerous coal town, the first life lesson was survival.

His parents were Polish immigrants and his father was working in Mine No. 5, so the family lived at the coal mining camp of Dietz No. 5 at the time of Kuzara's birth. 

The Kuzara family, which eventually grew to seven boys and five girls, lived in a converted barn that was formerly a camp grocery store and post office, Kuzara wrote in his book “Black Diamonds of Sheridan.” 

Later, their camp would be renamed Dietz No. 8 when Mine No. 5 closed and a new mine established in the same area.

By the early 1900s, Dietz was among the largest coal-producing communities in northern Wyoming with 800 men working the mines in the winter and 400 in the summer. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Unlike a single town, Dietz was a collection of mining camps. "}]

G.B Dobson of Wyoming Tales and Trails wrote that each town bore the number of its corresponding mine, thus when Mine No. 5 was closed and replaced by Mine No. 8, the camp was renamed Dietz No. 8.   

Other mines in the region included the Hotchkiss, Acme, Model, Carneyville (later Kleenburn), Monarch, and Kooi.

Nearly every European country was represented in the camps which Kuzara listed as Polish, Hungarians, Welsh, Scotch, English, Italians, Czechoslovakians, Bulgarians, Austrians, Germans, Serbians, Montenegrans, Irish, Slovaks, Japanese, and French.

[{"type":"text","text":"Life was precarious in the camp. "}]

When Kuzara was a year old, his parents had to live in a tent with the family while they waited for their new house to become available. That would be the John Hecht Place located about midway between the Dietz No. 7 and the Dietz No. 5 camps.

It was while in this tent that Kuzara said his mother had him in a high chair placed near the coal range to keep him warm. 

One of the other small boys began to climb on the high chair and, when it became unbalanced, Kuzara fell on top of the hot range. 

He severely burned his right cheek and carried the scar for the rest of his life.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Dangerous Games"}]

Kuzara said that the kids in the coal mining camp would have to get inventive in their games.

He remembered how at times, they would “borrow” a handcar from the CB&Q railroad. 

These carts would be left on the siding of the tracks by a maintenance crew and proved too tempting to the boys who found it. 

Some of the older boys would carry them to the interurban tracks whose bed was not level as the railroad tracks.

“We would all push the hand-car up to the top of an incline just to experience the sensation of coasting down at quite a speed,” Kuzara said. “It was a wonder that we survived as the handles of the hand-car would be pumping up and down of their own accord.”

Another favorite pastime in the winter was to slide down the hills on homemade sleds, bobsled and toboggans.

The children would also ice skate on the sloughs and river, the latter which was kept clean of snow by flooding.

“Of course, skating on the river was sometimes very dangerous since the ice was either very thin where the water was naturally swift or was even non-existent,” Kuzara said. “We had to remain constantly on guard and did have some narrow escapes.”

A game unique to the coal mining camps was playing with carbide, a compound of carbon and a metal.

Kuzara explained that it was the habit of the miners to clean out their carbide lamps of the residue of carbide. 

He said that near the exit of the mine, one miner after another would unscrew the base of his lamp, knock it against the post and deposit the residue until there was quite a pile of spent carbide powder.

“As the men would empty their cans, we children would finger through the carbide dust, picking out all granules of unused carbide,” Kuzara said. “Sometimes we would merely pile it, drop water on it and light it; other times, place a supply of carbide in a bottle and after watering it, quickly cap the bottle and get quite a charge out of the resulting explosion.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Different Rules"}]

Kuzara recalled that even the men had their games that were usually of various contests of strength such as boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, and throwing horseshoes.

“My father once bet one of the more husky miners, Joe Stucca, that he could not lift a certain water-soaked oak railroad tie about 20 feet long,” Kuzara said. “The bet was $5.”

Stucca not only lifted one end of the tie on his shoulder, but gradually worked to its center until he had it balanced. Then the miner walked off with it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It was estimated that the tie weighed about 800 pounds."}]

Kuzara said that all ages played baseball. Each camp had its own team and there was real rivalry among the various camps as well as with teams from Sheridan and the surrounding area.

“Even with us younger boys, baseball was one of our principal activities,” Kuzara said. “However, instead of competing teams, we used to play work-up.”

A player would begin at left field position and as a batter was struck out, the players would gradually move up a position until finally, the boy would arrive at the batter’s box where he remained until he was put out. 

This made it so that the younger boys became very adept in each position, and they became particularly good batters. 

The end results were that when they were older and joined the men on the baseball teams, they were already very good at the game.  

Even in the wintertime, Kuzara said the men were able to keep involved in physical activities when not working their long hours in the mine

“Frequently with a keg of beer nearby, the frozen river became the scene of a game called Pravo, sometimes referred to as curling,” Kuzara said. “In this game of competition, one would run to a foul line and slide a disk or quoit along the ice, as in bowling, to an objective spot or line, frequently glancing off another’s quoit to gain advantage.”

Kuzara said that as a young boy, he also played on the frozen river in the wintertime. One of the games was called Shinny, which resembles hockey today.  

“Instead of owning any manufactured hockey stick and puck, we used to find a willow or some other tree which had a crook in it shaped like a hockey stick, and for a puck we used to use a bung from a barrel,” Kuzara said.

In the summertime as they tramped around in the trees, he said they were always on the lookout for a better “shinny stick.”

Another game Kuzara said was played by the men on the ice was called Bolina. 

He described this as similar to curling except that balls were used. A smaller target ball was rolled a distance, then the larger ball rolled, or lagged, to see how near one could get to the target ball.

[{"type":"text","text":"In all of these games, enthusiasm ran very high."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Celebrations"}]

Each of the mining camps had its own polka band that appeared in many of the big parades that were held in the early 1900s. They also played at the many Polish weddings and christenings.

Instead of celebrating birthdays, it was the accepted custom at the camps to celebrate their “name days.” 

On St. Joseph day, for example, every Joe in the camp set that day aside for celebrating his patron saint. On St. Maria Day, all Marys would celebrate. 

By the time all the Joes or Marys got together to celebrate they would have quite a party, complete with a band, Kuzara said.

The union hall in practically each mining camp would usually also serve as an auditorium for functions of other organizations and also for school plays and programs. 

Frequently, officials at the mine would give gifts to children at the Christmas party and, if times were good, these were quite elaborate.

Despite all the fun and community spirit Kuzara experienced, he also saw a lot of tragedy at a young age. 

Deaths were all too common from explosions, gas leaks and other accidents. 

His own father tried to stay out of the mines, and throughout Kuzara’s childhood, his father opened up stores that sold a wide range of goods, from liquor to furniture. 

Despite his efforts, his father would often have to return to the mines to feed his large family. 

Kuzara said that knowing he did not want a low-paying mine job, he studied hard in school. He pursued many careers to keep himself out of the mines. 

However, he also ended up doing his time underground, but kept striving to get other jobs that would get him above ground.

It was when looking back at his childhood that Kuzara appreciated what he had survived. 

Not just the hard labor, but the antics of the boys and men who lived in the coal mining camps of Wyoming, especially now that most of these coal mining camps are ghost towns with fading memories. 

"As I look back retrospect, I feel now that it really was a unique privilege to have been born in the mining camp of Dietz No.5, Wyoming," Kuzara wrote. "The fun, the frivolity, the pathos, and the hardships."

7 Dietz schoolchildren 1920s

<title>Wyoming History: Surviving A Dangerous Childhood Growing Up In Coal Town Of Dietz | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The ghost town of Dietz was once a thriving coal mining community near Sheridan. Stanley Kuzara grew up around the mines where explosions were commonplace. Families would rush to the mines to discover if the men working that shift had survived.  

Wyoming History: Surviving A Dangerous Childhood Growing Up In Coal Town Of Dietz

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Entertainment

Fifty years ago, the highlight of the Cody Stampede Parade marking America’s bicentennial celebration was a 30-foot-long .30-30 Winchester rifle, dominating a float that also carried legendary Western actor John Wayne.

[{"type":"text","text":"That rifle has been sitting atop a storefront in downtown Cody since. "}]

Everyone loves the giant Winchester, so they might have noticed when it recently suddenly disappeared from the roof where it had been prominently displayed since its trip down Sheridan Avenue decades earlier.

Like John Wayne himself, Cody’s giant Winchester rifle is coming back, better than ever, for another 50 years dominating Cody’s historic downtown.

“We're putting it back to what it was in 1976, as best we can,” said Mike Darby, owner of the Irma Hotel and the giant Winchester. “I can’t confirm or deny what we’re going to do with it, but we’re hoping to have it done by July 3.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fully Loaded"}]

It’s 1976, and the United States is starting down the barrel of its 200th anniversary. The Buffalo Bill Museum, now the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, decided to add its own ammunition to an already-loaded celebration.

July 4 was selected for the opening of the lavish Cody Firearms Museum. The addition of a massive Winchester collection, on loan from the Olin Corp., made it the world's largest firearms museum at the time.

Adding to the excitement, the museum would be dedicated by the grand marshal of that year’s Cody Stampede Parade: “The Duke” himself, John Wayne.

The Husky Oil Co., founded in Cody in 1938, decided to make its own big contribution to the festivities.

What better to celebrate the bicentennial, Wayne, and the Cody Firearms Museum than with a giant replica of one of the American West’s most iconic firearms?

Denny Shore was the head of Husky Oil’s activities committee at the time. His wife, Sue, remembers it well.

“The theme for the parade that year was ‘Celebrating Winchester: The Gun That Won the West,’” she said. “Denny decided to call the people who make parade floats and asked if they could do a giant Winchester. They said yes, so they did.”

Shore doesn’t remember what company built the humongous rifle, but she remembers when it arrived on a flatbed trailer and was parked in front of her house.

“I loved it,” she said. “I'm a gun nut, and I have a .30-30 Winchester that I always hunted with. I feel like it was my own, and we were sharing it.”

Cody resident and photographer Dewey Vanderhoff was hired by the Olin Corp. to get photos of the parade, Wayne, and the rifle.

“Katy Brown's ‘Buffalo Bill Dollies’ can-can girls danced in front of the big Winchester rifle at its public debut at the airport,” he said. “Everyone was there waiting for John Wayne's ceremonial arrival on a Boeing 727 jet with his entourage and family.”

As the Cody Stampede Parade cruised down Sheridan Avenue, the Winchester was the center of attention. If that wasn’t enough, Wayne was riding on the same float.

Most parade floats quickly disappear when they reach the end of the route, but there was a brighter future for the giant Winchester.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Everything Under The Gun'"}]

After its centerpiece moment in the parade, the giant Winchester was stored at the Husky Oil Refinery in Cody.

A few years later, Cody business owner Jack Skates opened Jack's Sports & OK Hardware at 1137 12th St. right next to the Irma. The store came with the giant Winchester on the roof, where it had ended up after leaving Husky Oil.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Their motto was ‘Everything Under The Gun,’” Shore said."}]

While the storefront changed hands multiple times in the next four decades, the rifle stayed right where it was. However, even the gun was under the gun.

Bob Carter owned one of the businesses, The Gunrunner, that occupied the space. He shared some details on the unique rooftop sculpture with 

“It was only constructed for temporary display,” he said. “Some parts were made from cardboard. It held up for many years, but eventually required renovation and replacement with more permanent materials.”

Carter added that the giant Winchester was a replica of a 1968 Winchester 94 Buffalo Bill .30-30 rifle, making all the more appropriate for Cody’s bicentennial celebration.

Any knowledgeable gun owner knows firearms need regular care and upkeep. Even with more permanent parts, 50 years of exposure on a Cody rooftop made the larger-than-life Winchester a little worse for wear.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Giant Gun Restoration"}]

In May, the giant Winchester disappeared from the rooftop of 1137 12th St. It’s now getting some much-needed refurbishment.

Darby said the rifle was acquired by the Irma Hotel when it bought the building it was sitting on in the 1990s.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It came at no extra charge,” he said."}]

Darby said the giant Winchester was in especially sorry shape going into this summer. If it was going to survive, it needed some help.

“The recent windstorms were hard on it, plus 50 years of weather damage,” he said. “It was about to fall off the building, so we got a crane to lift it up and put it on a trailer.”

On July 4, 1976, John Wayne paraded through Cody with a 30-foot-long Winchester rifle. 50 years later, that rifle was still sitting on a rooftop next to the Irma Hotel until it was temporarily taken down but it will make its glorious return by July 4.

Daily Darwin 2: Tuesday, September 23, 2025

In case you missed it

More in Daily Darwin

Daily Darwin: Sunday, June 21, 2026

Daily Darwin: Saturday, June 20, 2026

Daily Darwin: Friday, June 19, 2026

Daily Darwin: Thursday, June 18, 2026

Most read